Making wheelchairs and other small vehicles highly visible is important to prevent accidents with motor vehicles. In particular, many wheelchair users have been struck by cars when crossing streets because motorists failed to see them. Wheelchair users have employed tactics such as attaching flags, or wearing reflective clothing to make themselves more visible. Objects such as flags may make some marginal improvement in visibility over a plain wheelchair, but do not make a bold enough impression so that a motorist approaching a wheelchair will notice in time to make a complete stop or avoid a collision. Another drawback to flags is the lack of visibility at night. Even the most highly reflective flag may not provide enough notice to a motorist that he is approaching a wheelchair.
An answer to the problem of visibility at night and visibility in general is to add a light to a wheelchair. This has been done in U.S. Pat. No. 5,791,761 ('761 patent). However, even with the addition of a light, there still remains the problem of having a large distracting object protruding from the back of a wheelchair. As much as a wheelchair user wishes to be noticed when he is near traffic, he might not want to have a large light or flag prominently displayed above his head at all times when indoors. The wheelchair user may draw unwanted attention to himself, and thus the invention of the '761 patent does not present the best solution.